People must be at the heart of GMO policies: concerns over safety of genetically modified products will persist unless the public is engaged with the science behind them

India’s Supreme Court recently highlighted the right to environmental information while delivering a split verdict on the release of genetically modified mustard. The two-judge bench was divided — one argued against the release of the crop citing insufficient assessment of its health impacts while the other called the conditional approval progressive.

In this July 2024 verdict, the court directed the government to develop a national policy on genetically modified organisms by consulting all stakeholders, including states, independent experts and farmers’ bodies.

The move brings to sharp focus the need for policy to be guided by societal needs and expectations as much as scientific evidence. It shows how crucial wider public engagement is for synthetic biology (SynBio) interventions. After all, SynBio encompasses a suite of transformative technologies that have the potential for unprecedented control over living systems.